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[Post] Zampzon, I Know You’re Out There Somewhere

I love drawing comics. I’m not known by and large as a cartoonist and I’m certainly not a professional, but I carry around a sketchbook with me almost everywhere I go and draw comics every chance I get even if it is for my own amusement or the amusement of my friends and family. I just wanted to get that out there before I go on here. Some of you may be asking yourselves what has been going on with Zampzon and Digital Strips. I know I’ve been noticeably absent for weeks now. No new posts, no new DS comic strips and I even missed being on the last episode of the show. Our inbox is pilling up from lack of attention and it’s my fault.

So, since this is still a blog, I decided to let you all in on a few details of my personal life. I have worked in the software industry for about ten years now and all that time has been spent sitting in a cubicle and hacking around on a keyboard. That was a fine life for me for many years, but the company I was working for recently made some really bad decisions that I really didn’t agree with and, in a huff and show of defiance, I quit. I started my new job this January as a consultant and traded my cube dweller lifestyle for road warrior status. It is because of this dramatic career change that I haven’t been around much. I’ve been in hotels and airports and various offices all over the place. Personal time, the time I usually spent building Digital Strips content, has vanished in a puff of smoke.

Now I am starting to get a handle on this new life and my time management is getting better, but it’s really hard. I’ve spent several flights now hunched over the little fold down tray table drawing out DS comic strips and I have spent an awful lot of time in airport bars and hotel lobbies trying to connect to the web so I can try to keep up with my favorite comics. You guys should see the sort of chaos I’ve caused behind the scenes with this new job. I can count at least five times when Daku and Phil were online and ready to record a new show, but I had to cancel because I was working late or a flight was delayed or my hotel wireless connection was just too awful for me to be heard over Skype. Hell, I’m even typing this right now as I sit in Chicago’s International Airport waiting for my delayed flight to San Jose because this is the first time in a long time I’ve taken even an hour to do something personal like write a post for my web site.

Just another hotel room somewhere in California

It’s really all Daku’s fault too. He got me into this life and, to his credit, seems to handle it much better than I. I and my family are still learning to deal with it. We are really fortunate to have gotten help around here to keep things going, so my huge thanks goes out to Mr. Hian, The Geek, and Phil Kahn, because without them this past two months would have been just the Daku Show and web site.

There really isn’t too much of a point to this post other than me venting a little. I just thought I’d share. I mean, this wouldn’t be considered a real blog unless I jumped on here and whined once in a while, at least a little bit. I am trying to deal with my new situation and I don’t really want to see Digital Strips wither and die. I would even prefer to see it move on without me if it meant a choice between that or me killing it with lack of attention.

What does the future hold for the Mighty Zampzon and DS? That remains to be seen I guess. I have a day off this week while on the road. An entire day to sit in my hotel room and try to pull together a bunch of DS projects I’ve been trying to complete and shows I can record. I’ll just have to see what happens.

I\’m very sorry for your current stressors. Snd as much as I enjoy the hard work you put into DS, at the end of the day your job is your job and DS remains a hobby (for lack of a better term).

Your real life will always be far more valuable than DS, and that should have absolute priority. Being a bloke that has way to many creative endeavors, and a new life with a newly acquired wife, I can understand the stress of finding that balance.

I very much appreciate an explaination and some very personal thoughts on the matter. If you feel you ever needed to step away for a while, or involve yourself in a more off-hands sort of way, I imagine everyone would understand. Again, I know I certainly would.

If there is anything that I could do to help the site, or anything really, just let me know.

Thanks for all that you\’ve done, and I wish you the best, no matter what path you choose.

Let\’s all put our heads on our hands and give a collective awwwwwwww! Sounds like Zampzon needs some help and motivation to keep the strip going. He\’s easily distracted by bright new shinny things like the video icon he\’s been working on.

I give Zampzon a hard time only because he does so much more then me. I\’m just now discovering how freakin hard it is to put together a strip, especially one of the magnitude I\’m planning.

Wait-a-minute. You were stuck in Chicago O\’Hare on the 19th? I was stuck there just two days before you due to a canceled flight to Boise! I was stuck there all night Thursday the 16th and all day Friday the 17th! I\’m never going back to that airport again! SCREW O\’HARE!!!

By-the-way… \”Road Warrior?\” Post-apocolyptic Mel Gibson you are not. Probably more like Tom Hanks in The Terminal.